While most producers born of dubstep’s leading lights are only just getting around to making their debut albums, Paul Rose – AKA Scuba – is shortly to deliver his second, Triangulation.
He’s come a long way since 2008′s A Mutual Antipathy, one of the earliest consummations of the then-fledgling relationship between dubstep and techno. Fast-forward three years and all that talk of a dubstep-techno “crossover” of course seems incredibly quaint – thanks to Scuba and select peers it’s now abundantly clear how much those two dance strains have in common, and how porous the membrane that divides them is. The grammar may differ, but the language is the same.
Re-locating from London to Berlin in 2007, Rose became friendly with the DJs and producers – and avowed dubstep fans – who work at the Hardwax record store, and from there came to co-found Sub:Stance – Germany’s biggest and certainly most progressive dubstep night, running regularly at Berlin’s iconic techno stronghold Berghain. He continues to hold down a DJ residency at the night and this month sees the release of his Sub:Stance 01 -Â the first in a new series of mix CDs showcasing the titular night’s sound and aesthetic.
As a producer, Rose has continued to hone his craft and expand his palette. The new Scuba album, Triangulation, explores a range of tempos and styles, embracing not just dubstep and techno but low-slung house and the kind of rolling, minimal drum ‘n bass that the likes of Instra:mental, dBridge and Spectrasoul have made so popular of late. And yet there’s a continuity here with what’s gone before; for all its excursions into unfamiliar rhythmic realms, there’s no mistaking Triangulation’s essential Scuba-ness, so to speak.
Rose founded the Hotflush Recordings label in 2003, and has brough the world a steady stream of diverse basswise releases from the likes of Distance, Luke Envoy, Toasty, Benga and Slaughter Mob, as well his own ear-catching offerings; last year he made two particularly canny A&R moves, signing Mount Kimbie and releasing Joy Orbison’s world-conquering ‘Hyph Mngo’ 12″.
2010 looks set to be a particularly busy and prosperous year for this chatty and affably ambitious young man. Beyond the Triangulation LP and the Sub:Stance mix, he’ll shortly be kicking off his SCB 12″ series, dedicated to pushing the housier side of his sound, and then of course there’s the ongoing Berghain residency and a string of DJ dates around the world. That kind of schedule might bring a lesser man out in a…hot flush. Ahem.
FACT called up Paul at his Berlin home to hear how it all happened, and where it’s all headed.
First things first: what was your route into music, particularly club music?
“I played in bands from quite a young age. I played guitar and keyboards and various other things. I was quite into guitar-playing, but I always more into writing music than playing it, from quite early on…So I did the band thing for a while, had some bad band experiences, as lots of people have [laughs], and I guess I gradually got into electronic music by the typical route really – started going out and going to clubs and gradually got into the music as well as the going out part of it.
“The first stuff that I was properly into was techno, and then I gradually moved around in my teenage years from kind of early jungle stuff and then to garage. When I first started playing out I was in the jungle phase, and then, as I went into garage, that just kind of stuck but it also gradually developed into what I’m doing now. It was all kind of organic, really.”
You’re from London originally?
“Yeah, I’m from London, I grew up near Finsbury Park, but I went to uni in Bristol so I was there for three years.”
Did your time there coincide with the jungle epiphany or?
“By that time, it was more garage, really. I went to uni in ’98 – god, that’s fucking ages ago [laughs] – so garage was already big in London but it hadn’t really migrated out properly at that point.
Hotflush started out as a clubnight in Bristol; we did jungle in the main room and garage in the second room – that’s really how the whole thing started. I was still into jungle for a while, it only really started to get shit for me around 2005-6, or maybe a little earlier than that, 2004.”
Mutual Antipathy was released in 2008.